by melaniewp | Jun 10, 2013 | AQA Lit B, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Lady of Shallott, Mirror, Quotes, Sylvia Plath, Symbolism, The Gothic
All Gothic resourcesMirrors are a key element of the Gothic, symbolising: identity, sense of self, vanity, worldliness, sensuality – or an ethereal, ghostly other-world. For the Lady of Shallott they symbolise her isolation – cursed, she can only see...
by melaniewp | Jun 9, 2013 | Analysis, GCSE, Poetry, Sensory Langauge, Ted Hughes, Wind
This is a lesson I did for a student on how to find examples of sensory language. I’ve already posted on how writers use this here and also how you can use it in your own writing, here. But we needed more detail using a specific example. The poem...
by melaniewp | Jun 8, 2013 | AQA, Flag John Agard, GCSE, IGCSE, Model Essays, Moon on the Tides, Poetry
Flag is tightly regular in its line length, rhyme scheme and in the refrain ‘it’s just a piece of cloth’, which repeats in all but the final stanza. It feels very controlled. This control allows the poet to explore the meaning of the same ‘piece of cloth’, or flag,...
by melaniewp | Jun 7, 2013 | AQA, GCSE, IGCSE, Model Essays, Moon on the Tides, Out of the Blue, Poetry, Simon Armitage
Basic SummaryThis poem is spoken by a trader inside the World Trade Centre (twin towers) on 9/11 moments before the buildings collapse. He seems to be asking us for help, asking whether we can see him. The poem is written as if it’s happening now. The man...
by melaniewp | Jun 5, 2013 | AQA Lit B, IB English, Something Interesting, The Gothic
Horace Walpole’s novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764) is usually described as the first gothic novel. What makes it ‘gothic’? It’s set in medieval Italy with a claustrophobic castle, has a melodramatic plot, long-suffering females and uses...
